Bloggers-Don’t Blog About Spam!

Earlier this week I posted Bloggers, Quit Worrying About Spam, discussing what I felt was an over-focus on preventing spam in blog comments. I stand by that, but since that post the rate of spam being posted to my blog is up by a factor of 10 or more. Whether that’s because the spammers finally […]

Do You Have Other Opportunities Open?

Imagine you’re talking with a recruiter about a position that seems like a good fit and during that conversation they ask “Do you have other opportunities open?”. What’s the right answer? And what is the underlying intent? In general I’m in favor of honesty, but I’m also in favor of being employed! If you say […]

SQLSaturday National Blog Sponsors

With SQLSaturday #49 we tried something I call micro-sponsors, charging $5 for a blogger to sponsor the event. It’s a way to do brand building and to contribute in a fun way. It’s not a huge amount of money, about $4.50 after the merchant fees, and I think for Orlando we netted $50$60. At least […]

Bloggers, Quit Worrying About Spam

I don’t comment as often as I should on blog posts. I say should because as a blogger I know that it’s a bit of a treat to have someone post a comment, especially when you don’t know the person, or realize the person was reading what you wrote on a regular basis. Bloggers crave […]

PASS 2011 Budget Posted

Bill Graziano posted our 2011 budget today. This runs from Jul 1, 2010, through Jun 30, 2011. I hope you’ll review it, and consider reading my thoughts on the budget process as well. It’s not easy reading. That’s not intentional, it’s just a lot of detail. Dig in, ask questions! If you look at the […]

SQLSaturday #62 in Tampa on January 15, 2011

So far SQLSaturday Tampa will be the first SQLSaturday of 2011, and the first one I’ll be attending in 2011 as well. I’m going to try to attend one event a month, the try portion meaning there is a terrible temptation to do more (as in all of them) and that sometimes as much as […]

Review: All Things at Once by Mika Brzezinkski

One more from the ‘new book’ shelf at the library, All Things at Once is an auto biography of Mika Brzezinski, a moderately well known TV news person who is currently the co-anchor of a morning news/political commentary show. The book, in my view at least, isn’t about politics. It’s about the struggle to be […]

Saying Thank You

I was just writing a thank you message to our speakers for SQLSaturday #49 and wanted to write down a couple thoughts about that. The SQLSaturday tools remind us to send a thank you note and even suggests text, but whether you modify the boilerplate or write something from scratch, it’s worth doing. Does a […]

SSC Editorial – Cheap Fun

I wrote Cheap Fun after buying a really cheap – $1 – wood airplane kit at the store for the kids. Amazing what manufacturers can do with a 9×12 piece of really thin plywood. We added glue, some minor head scratching around assembly, and of course the custom paint job!

Minutes of the September 2010 PASS Board Meeting Posted

Please take a few minutes to review the September 2010 minutes (login required). We just had our October meeting on October 14th, those minutes should be available by the end of next week at the latest. I know it’s not a thriller, but it’s worth five minutes to understand what we’re discussing each month.